


Getting Personal

by agentsofsunnydale (Theblueeyedvampire)



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Episode: s01e20 Nothing Personal, Episode: s01e21 Ragtag, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Grant Ward Redemption, Season/Series 01, Skyeward - Freeform, Slow Burn, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-19
Updated: 2017-07-03
Packaged: 2018-11-02 13:01:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10945038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Theblueeyedvampire/pseuds/agentsofsunnydale
Summary: Betrayal hits gut-deep... as Ward realizes when Garrett is willing to kill him in order to pry the team's secrets from Skye. What if he really took to heart Skye's words about HYDRA being Nazis and her utter disgust with his actions? Would it be enough to tip the scales, for him to prove there's some good in him after all?





	1. Heart Attack

**Author's Note:**

> This fic picks up in the middle of S1 Ep 20: Nothing Personal and will adhere closely to canon with a few twists and turns. Slow-burn Skye/Ward, plus some other couples depending on how long this gets. My immense thanks to psychokittymiss for the S1 transcripts available on her livejournal.

Chapter 1: Heart Attack

_“Skye! Skye! Don’t run! You don’t understand! I’m not trying to hurt you!”_

The memory of Ward’s yells as she ran from the diner echoed in her head, bouncing like ping-pong balls through her semi-conscious mind. The last thing Skye remembered was Mike Peterson smashing through the windshield of the police cruiser she’d tried to escape in. Things after that were a little fuzzy, including _where_ she currently was. She swallowed, keeping her eyes closed and trying her best to remain still as voices became clear around her, Mike at a distance, Ward closer.

“You should be thanking me. I saved your ass.”

“You didn’t save my ass,” Ward said irritably. “You turned it into a public spectacle.”

Ward’s voice got even nearer to her, and a hand – his hand – gently touched the side of her face. She couldn’t help shivering a little at that, and she opened her eyes to see Ward crouched in front of her, concern in his face.

“Skye…”

“Get away from me,” she mumbled, still a little blearing from being choked unconscious.

Apparently satisfied that she was okay, Ward straightened up and turned back to Mike. The three of them were in the familiar cargo hold of the Bus, though it seemed so different lacking the friendly faces of Fitz and Simmons in their lab space. With any luck, the team had found her message by now and were hard at work trying to stop Ward and Garrett… but rescuing her couldn’t be high on their priority list. Not when both HYDRA and the US Military was intent on driving S.H.I.E.L.D. deeper into the shadows.

“You let her get one over on you,” said Mike. “That’s exactly what Garrett was afraid of.”

Ward took an aggressive step toward Mike, close enough to poke him in the chest. Watching them, Skye wondered what her chances of escape might be if it came to blows between the two. It wasn’t likely, but the thought helped her spirits.

“And Garrett told _you_ to stay out of sight.”

“He ordered me to shadow you. He knew you had a soft spot for Skye, and she might take advantage of it.”

A hint of irritation and guilt passed over Ward’s face – Garrett clearly had him pegged. Skye rubbed her aching head, sitting up a little straighter from where she had been deposited on the floor by the emergency buckle seats.

“We have her,” said Ward, not directly answering Mike’s accusation. “And once she gives us a location, we’ll be off.”

“Yeah, that’s not gonna happen,” said Skye, hands clenching into determined fists at her sides.

She was sick of pretending. For over a day she’d played along, feigning a budding romance with Ward even though she’d seen the aftermath of what he’d done to Eric Koenig, knew what he must have done to countless others in the past weeks since HYDRA had gone public. She’d smiled… held his hand… let him hug her. She’d even kissed him, her boldest move of counter-deception.

But she couldn’t pretend any longer, couldn’t act like she was falling in love with a monster.

“Take a walk,” Ward ordered Mike. “I can handle this.”

“Can you?” she countered. “You haven’t so far.”

Mike turned his head, his gaze seemingly out of focus for a few seconds, then he looked back up at Ward. “Garrett says you have five minutes.”

Ward nodded, accepting the deadline. As Mike’s clanking footsteps ascended the ladder, Skye struggled to her feet, glaring with all the fierceness she could muster. Ward stood watching her, and she couldn't tell what was behind his expression – pity, perhaps, or a hint of regret that he would have to cross her off once the hard drive was unlocked. Because undoubtedly, those would be Garrett’s next orders: kill her once they had the data they needed.

She knew she was weak and practically helpless, and that every single one of the “moves” she knew were the product of Ward’s training, all the days he’d put up with her distracted attitude and her jokes and her flirting. _God, if only I’d actually paid attention instead of hitting on him_.

Because she _had_ hit on him, time and time again. She’d _wanted_ him, wanted him _bad_. She’d been so attracted to him that the memories of her idle fantasies now made her sick to her stomach, how much she’d been deceived by the man who was now only keeping her alive so long as she was useful to him and, by extension, Garrett.

Still, she was going to fight like hell to take him down with her.

“I can explain.”

His gentle expression – as if patronizing her would make everything he’d done all okay – just made her more angry. Pushing off the row of seats, she stomped toward him.

“You lying bastard!” She aimed a punch at Ward’s stomach, giving it all the force she could manage. He grunted from surprise and pain, stumbling backwards a step. Skye pursued, her fist flying at his face, her other hand clenching the front of his shirt. “Son of a bitch! You liar!”

“Stop. Skye, stop. Calm down!”

Ward seized her wrists, subduing her in seconds and holding her until she stilled. He wasn’t rough, just overwhelmingly strong. She shook in his grasp, glaring.

“Okay?” he demanded. “It’s over. You can’t win.”

His tone was placating, an attempt to persuade her of the pointlessness of struggling. She stared fiercely at him for a moment… and then whipped her head forward as hard as she could, cracking his nose with her forehead. He reared back, reaching for his nose.

“Ow! Stop it.”

Before she could try again, he wrenched her hands behind her back, cuffing one of her wrists to the spiral stair railing, then stepped out of reach. She seethed and struggled against the handcuff as he walked into the lab for a towel to mop his bloodied nose.

 _At least I got in one good hit_. That thought was the little silver lining in the thunderstorm of her circumstances. Mike’s threat echoed in her head, that Garrett had given Ward five minutes… five minutes to convince her to confess the new coordinates for the locked hard drive, to give away all the technical knowledge their team had amassed over the past year. Coulson’s secrets. _Her_ secrets.

“All this time,” she said, still breathing heavily from her attempt to fight him, “everything we've been through. Why? How could you?”

“I was on a mission,” Ward answered quietly. “It wasn’t personal.”

“ ‘It wasn’t’… you did not just say that. ‘It wasn’t _personal’_?!” She swung at him, but the handcuff held her back.

“Skye, listen to me.”

“God! You might actually believe that. You – that is – that is the twisted logic that they teach you when you sign up to be a Nazi.”

A surprised frown creased his face. “Stop, wait, I’m not a Nazi.”

His expression confirmed he genuinely believed it, which stunned Skye even more.

“Yes, you _are_ ,” she said, enunciating each syllable as though her words were sledgehammer strikes, the only weapon she had left. “That’s _exactly_ what you are. It’s in the S.H.I.E.L.D. handbook, chapter one. The Red Skull, founder of HYDRA, was a big, fat, freaking Nazi!”

“That has nothing to do with today.”

“You know you always had that ‘Hitler youth’ look to you so it’s really not that surprising.”

“It’s not like that,” he insisted. “I’m a _spy_. I had a _job_.”

Just a job… Victoria Hand… Eric Koenig… the S.H.I.E.L.D. soldiers at the Fridge… the police officers today… There was so much blood on his hands. She shook her head, shuddering.

“You’ve killed I don’t know how many people… You gonna kill me now?”

“No,” he said. “I would never hurt you.”

_How much of Garrett’s five minutes are left? What then?_

“Once I crack the drive, are you just gonna shoot me like you did with Thomas Nash?” she asked, a trembling crack in her voice. “Or are you gonna have someone else do it, like you did with Quinn?”

“I didn’t know that was gonna happen. That was all Garrett.”

 _Sure_ , she almost snorted aloud _, blame someone else for all the blood you’ve shed._

“Oh, of course it was Garrett’s fault. That was part of the _mission_ , right? You were just gonna kick back and watch me bleed until it was your turn to pull the trigger.”

He looked genuinely hurt by that accusation, his brow furrowing, pain in his eyes. Skye didn’t want to look too closely, yet at the same time she couldn’t look away.

“You think I had a part in that? That I would let that happen to you? You know how I feel about you, Skye.”

 _How he… feels? Not ‘felt’? That wasn’t just an act, like everything else?_ She shivered, repulsed by the idea that after all the bloodshed and treachery, he still wanted a claim on her heart.

“Wait… So, even though you’ve been lying to _everyone_ about _everything_ , you’re saying your feelings for me—”

“They’re real, Skye.” He was close enough now to touch her, to capture her trembling face in his hands. “They always have been.”

His expression was so tender, so sincere… so undeniably handsome, as he always was… but it just made Skye more horrified. Looking at him, she couldn’t help but remember the image of Koenig’s body out of her mind, the blood dripping down.

“I’m gonna throw up.”

She squirmed out of Ward’s grip and stepped away, backing into the spiral staircase. Though she didn't want to make eye contact with him, she saw the twinge of pain that her words caused, more now than when she had been yelling and calling him a Nazi.

“Do you… do you think this has been easy for me?” he demanded, voice low and intense, almost a growl. “Do you have any idea how hard it was? The sacrifices, the decisions I had to make? But I made them, because that’s what I do. I’m a _survivor_.”

“You are a _serial killer_ ,” said Skye. Her eyes were full of tears, and if she was perfectly honest with herself, they weren’t just from anger and betrayal. There was the barest trace of heartbreak mixed in. “And you know what? You were right about one thing. I _wouldn’t_ like the real you.”

His eyes glistened with the barest hint of tears as well. Skye set her mouth in a hard line, trying her best to glare instead of fall apart in weepy misery and fear. She hadn’t been this scared since she’d been shot in Italy… but somehow this was worse than lying on the floor, alone and bleeding. This time it wasn’t a douchbag billionaire facing her. It was her teammate… her S.O.… the man she’d almost fallen in love with.

“Someday,” he whispered, “someday, you’ll understand.”

 _Understand what? Understand_ him _? Understand how someone can betray everyone who had his back, who stood by him through thick and thin for months?_

“No. I _won’t_. And I will never, _ever_ , give you what you want.”

She slumped to a seat on the staircase, gazing across the cargo hold at Coulson’s beloved car, Lola. She could feel Ward’s eyes still on her, but he stayed silent. Truthfully, it would have easier if somehow she could believe he was brainwashed by Garrett, that all his atrocities had been carried out either through some form of hypnosis or because he was under threat of death, like Akela Amador or the Centipede soldiers… or Mike. But she didn’t think so. This was the real Ward, a cold-hearted, ruthless murderer, acting of his own free will. And everything else about him – _everything_ – was a lie.

Idly, she tugged at the cuff on her wrist, but it was secure, no chance of wriggling her way out. She should have learned how to pick locks. Wasn’t that supposed to be part of Spy Lessons 101? The first thing her S.O. should have covered?

“Time’s up,” said Ward, and she looked up to see Mike Peterson descending the stairs above her. “You can tell me where to unlock the drive… or you can tell him.”

Skye gazed into Mike’s scarred face and saw nothing but blank resolve in his eyes, as though he’d already deemed his situation without hope. She tried to think of what Coulson or May would do if she were them in this situation, but there was no way she could possibly outthink or outfight both Ward and Mike. She was alone, she was cuffed to the stairs, and she was the only one who knew where to unlock the hard drive. If she didn’t give them what they wanted… would they try to torture it out of her? Would they just shoot her, no top-secret T.A.H.I.T.I. formula to bring her back from the edge of death this time?

“Mike…” It was all she could do to keep her voice from shaking. “Please. I know you don’t want to do this.”

“It’s not up to me. Tell us how to unlock the drive,” he said without any inflection in his voice.

_This is it. This is where I choose whether I deserve that S.H.I.E.L.D. badge or not._

“No.”

“Damn it, Skye,” Ward hissed under his breath.

He stepped away from the wall of the lab, oddly enough as though he was prepared to intervene if Mike did anything to her. Or maybe she was reading him wrong, assuming there might still be a hint of the heroic protector still in there, instead of the backstabbing villain. She couldn’t afford to keep thinking that way. She looked back at Mike, desperate.

“You could have shot me back in Italy, but you _didn’t_. They made Quinn do it because there’s still good in you, Mike, and I don’t think you’re gonna hurt me.”

His damaged eyes stared back at her, his face still resolute and expressionless.

“You’re right. I won’t hurt you.”

Turning, Mike aimed his arm at Ward and fired something straight at him at practically point-blank range. It was a disc barely a couple inches in diameter and latched to the front of Ward’s shirt with tiny metallic grips, like a spider. As Skye watched, it whirred and lit up with a red glow, and Ward grunted with pained shock. He fell back against the door, one hand clutching his chest, mouth open in a gasp.

“What— what did you do to him?”

“I stopped his heart.”

Ward lay on the floor, twitching, his fingers prying weakly at the device on his chest.

Skye watched, a chilling fear seeping into her veins. _This isn’t… this isn’t what I wanted…_

“His heart…”

“Isn’t beating. He’s having a heart attack.” Mike lifted his wrist to Skye, indicating the implant on his arm that had shot the disc. “I can restart it or not. It’s your choice.”

She made the mistake of looking down and meeting Ward’s dark eyes, of seeing the fear there.

“Skye…” he groaned.

“You think I don’t want to watch him suffer?” she asked Mike, trying to keep her voice level.

“Not suffer. _Die_. Garrett doesn’t think you’re gonna let that happen.”

“He’s a murderer,” she whispered.

“Yes, he is. Are you?”

Ward had stilled, no more struggling, no movement whatsoever. His eyes were wide, staring up at Skye with such genuine terror of death that it made her stomach seem to drop out from inside her gut. She didn’t want to watch the life ebb from his eyes, no matter how many lives he had taken.

Because Garrett was right. Ward may be a killer, but Skye wasn't. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t make that call.

“Okay, stop,” she demanded, tugging uselessly at the handcuff trapping her by the stairs. She would have stomped her foot on the cargo hold floor if it would have helped. “Bring him back!”

“Where do you unlock the drive?”

“Thirty-five thousand feet. It’s not based on longitude or latitude, it’s altitude.”

Ward wasn’t breathing. His eyes were open and vacant. Cold.

_Did I wait too long? Is he…?_

“You’re lying,” said Mike.

“I’m not! You – I put the password in and I-I start the hack and once we reach altitude, it unlocks. Now bring him back!”

***S.H.I.E.L.D.***

There was no light, no tunnel, no replay of his life’s highlights, no hint of a happy ending for someone like him. Everything was fading to a cold, soundless grey fog… nothing left but the knowledge that Garrett had let him die, had put his neck on the metaphorical chopping block in an effort to force Skye to give up their team. And she wouldn’t do it…

_“Now bring him back!”_

Just as crushing darkness rolled over him, power jolted through his body, a focused spasm at his chest, forcing his heart to resume beating. He gasped, lungs screaming for the air he had missed, feeling as though he’d been squeezed through a grinder.

While he lay panting, Ward heard Mike releasing the handcuff on Skye’s wrist and saw him dragging her into the lab to her laptop. Her gaze drifted over him for just a moment as they passed… but there wasn’t a trace of the affection he’d grown accustomed to seeing, no twinkle in her eyes or playful quirk of her lip. She wasn’t happy that he was alive. Maybe relieved, but nothing more.

He struggled to sit up, watching Mike finish giving Skye orders. All his limbs felt simultaneously drained and swollen, like the blood that had been momentarily paused in his veins had plugged up in places. He was still on the ground panting for breath when Mike exited the lab and paused by his side to tug him back to his feet.

“You…” Ward groaned, “you son of a bitch.”

“Get the plane in the air.”

“I _can’t_. I can barely stand. _You_ do it.”

After all, Garrett could easily convey the instructions to pilot the Bus through Mike’s cybernetic eye. He didn’t _need_ Ward anymore… not when he could give commands as easily as sending a text message.

The realization was a gut-punch. For the last fifteen years of his life, Garrett had been everything – father, S.O., mentor. Ward never saw himself as a true believer in HYDRA or its creed or its Nazi foundation. For him, it all circled back to the moment Garrett rescued him from juvie. Garrett knew every one of his deepest, darkest secrets, how much he’d hated his abusive family, all the rage he’d built up against his parents and older brother. And in turn, Ward had kept Garrett’s secrets, serving HYDRA from within S.H.I.E.L.D. all these years, repairing him as his mechanically-enhanced body slowly gave out, helping him on his quest for the miracle cure, the GH-325 formula that just happened to be running through Skye’s veins. Time and time again, he’d been the one who had Garrett’s back.

Apparently, none of that meant anything to his former S.O. Ward was disposable. Just like Skye had been disposable when she’d been shot to force Coulson’s hand. No matter how faithfully Ward had stuck by Garrett’s side for so many years, it apparently wasn’t good enough.

Mike turned his gaze through the glass of the lab doors, but Ward couldn’t tell whether he was looking at Skye or reading the orders he must be receiving. Maybe both.

“Fine. Watch her. Make sure she doesn’t try any tricks.”

With that, Mike headed for the stairs again. Ward watched him go, then ripped the heart-attack disc off his shirt, crunching it in his hand.

He’d been in a lot of tough scrapes in his life, deep-cover missions, assignments with no extraction plan. But this was different. This time his life had been ripped out of his own hands, literally dangled in front of someone else like a toy held just out of a child’s reach. Garrett had banked on Skye’s compassion winning out over her resolve, and though he’d been right, he could just as easily have misjudged her. She was much tougher than she looked.

He watched through the sliding glass door while Skye typed intently. Her accusations stung, as did the knowledge that she must have been playing him ever since Providence Base, that her sweetness and coy smiles – her kiss – was all an act.

_Oh._

There was another gut punch, except that this one seemed to hit closer to his heart, like the pulse device that had nearly ripped his life away. Compared to what he’d done, her half-day of deception was trivial.

 _His_ treachery had ripped apart their team.

He’d never meant to feel any connection with them. Like he’d said, it was a _mission_ , nothing more. Until he’d been holed up with the boy in a culvert outside of Ossetia… until the scientist had taken multiple bullets out of his shoulder… until he’d had to watch helplessly while Skye bled and barely breathed…

They were a family… and he’d put it all on the line for a man who didn’t give a shit about him.

_To be continued…_


	2. Double Double-Cross

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s notes: Thanks so much for reading. Special thanks to Orlissa for commenting. Here’s the second installment, still covering the events of Season 1, Episode 20: Nothing Personal. Major departure from canon coming up!

Chapter 2: Double Double-Cross

He was still standing there staring sadly through the glass at Skye when the Bus’s radio intercom activated with a short crackle of static, and the voice of Fury’s second-in-command blared through the system.

_“Maria Hill to S.H.I.E.L.D. 6-1-6. You have thirty seconds to stand down and surrender.”_

Ward groaned. The last thing he wanted to do was exchange pithy banter with Hill while he was still recovering from having his heart stopped. He had no idea how they had caught up with them so qui—

His gaze drifted to Skye, who had the barest trace of a smile on her mouth while she continued to type.

_Of course. She tipped them off, reengaged the Bus’s GPS or any number of ways she could have done it. Clever girl_. _A survivor, like me_.

_“I repeat, stand down and surrender,”_ said Commander Hill over the radio. _“You gonna answer me, Ward, or do I have to come over there?”_

They knew. It was the only explanation for Hill calling him out personally. His team knew he was a double-agent, knew what he’d done in service to Garrett and, by extension, HYDRA. For a moment, he thought of how they must have reacted upon the realization – of Fitz-Simmons, Trip, May, and Coulson, their looks of horrified shock at his betrayal – but then he swallowed hard, beating down those thoughts. He knew what he’d signed up for, to be a wolf in the herd. He couldn’t keep wasting time caring about how the herd felt, even if they were the closest thing he’d had to family in his entire life.

Grudgingly – only because he knew that prepping the Bus for liftoff would take time, especially with Mike’s inexperience at piloting and Garrett spoon-feeding him instructions – Ward limped over to the intercom panel on the wall and tapped a few keys to patch into plane-to-plane radio. He continued to track Skye with his eyes, genuinely hoping his strength would recover in time to stop her if she tried anything. If he was still weak, he would be sloppy and could accidentally hurt her.

“Maria Hill,” he grumbled into the receiver. “I kind of hoped you went down with the Triskelion.”

_“And I hoped you weren’t the duplicitous lowlife you turned out to be, but here we are.”_

He rolled his eyes. He could picture Hill’s smug face watching the Bus from whatever vehicle she’d commandeered – S.H.I.E.L.D. couldn’t have many resources left at their disposal, not after all that HYDRA had seized.

“Gonna be honest with you, Hill. I’m having a pretty bad day. So if I were you, I’d get the hell out of our way.”

_“Mm, then give up Skye and we’ll talk about it.”_

Through the lab doors, he saw Skye’s face brighten with a hint of relief.

“Yeah, that’s not happening,” he said into the radio. He couldn’t let her go now, not until he’d had a chance to truly explain himself, to prove that he hadn’t done what he’d done for HYDRA, but for Garrett. Even though he now knew Garrett was willing to discard him at a moment’s notice in exchange for all the secrets on Coulson’s hard drive.

_“You know, I never liked you, Ward. Not since our first sit down, but I never figured you for John Garrett’s lapdog.”_

Ward grit his teeth at the insult. It was accurate – the last half hour proved it – but still, it seemed a little below the belt, even for Hill.

Or… was she stalling?

_“Ward, final warning. Hand Skye over or I’ll have a squad of F-16s knock you on your ass.”_

“Even if you had that kind of pull anymore, which you don’t, Coulson would never let you do that,” he replied. “He would never sacrifice Skye like that. But you know Garrett would.” _He’d sacrifice us all in a heartbeat, just as long as he could pull the cracked drive from the rubble._ “So don’t try to follow us.”

_“This doesn’t have to go down like this, Ward. You don’t owe Garrett anything_.”

He sighed heavily, wanting so badly to agree with her, to deny Garrett’s claim on his loyalty, the life-debt he owed, the claim that superseded the team, the family. Garrett had found him when he was worth nothing to anyone, had filled the void left by an abusive father and an uncaring mother, had shaped him into the calculating double-agent he was today. _The one who could never get attached to anyone or anything…_

“You’re wrong,” he said bitterly, partly to shut up his own thoughts.

As he spoke, the plane shuddered and began to ascend in a vertical climb. Ward grimaced – as he’d expected, Garrett could pass all necessary flight instructions to Mike, no need for an experienced pilot in the plane’s cockpit.

And then something hard and metal slammed into the back of his head with a ringing clang.

Grunting in pain, Ward dropped the radio receiver and fell, instinctively canting to the side and kicking his legs out to trip whoever had attacked him. Skye wobbled, tipped off balance due to the heavy fire extinguisher she had used to wallop him in the head, and sprawled out on the floor next to him. He reached over and grabbed her by the wrist, shaking the extinguisher from her hands.

“Let go of me!”

“Stop it! Skye!”

She elbowed him in the face and tried to grab the handgun tucked into the back of his jeans, but Ward rolled, locking his arms around her torso to keep her still. He held her in a strange mockery of an embrace, her back pinned to his chest, his cheek against her hair. His ears rang from the impact of the fire extinguisher, and he thought he could feel blood trickling along his scalp.

“Typical. I take my eyes off you for one _second_ …”

“Let me go!”

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he insisted, though he couldn’t keep the growl of annoyance from his tone. “But Deathlok might, if you don’t get that drive up and running. Okay?”

“It’s done already,” she mumbled, anger and defeat in her voice. She stopped struggling against his restraining arms. “I should have just let Mike finish you when I had the chance.”

Her words didn’t have much bite to them, but they still stung, the fact that she now regretted her choice to save his life. Ward sighed. He should have seen this coming, should have anticipated how she and the rest of the team would react, should have known there was little hope now for her to feel for him as he felt for her. She’d said it in the diner: disgusting… a disgusting, backstabbing traitor… rot in hell…

“Skye…”

“Just shut up, Ward.”

“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

He loosened his grip, and she pushed away from him, sitting up with her back against the lab’s glass door and staring at him with fear and loathing. He sat on his knees, facing her and breathing heavily. Every inch of his body still ached from Mike’s surprise heart-attack contraption.

“You’re sorry?” Skye repeated skeptically. “Sorry for what? For being a jackass? For murdering all those people? For doing Garrett’s dirty work? Yeah, right. Why don’t you take your apology and shove it up your—”

Skye stopped speaking, her eyes focusing on something behind him and lighting up with excitement, but before he could turn around—

“Don’t move!” said Phil Coulson’s voice.

_Coulson?! How the hell…?_

“Hands in the air and face me. Slowly.”

Lifting his hands, Ward got up from his knees. He turned to find Coulson crossing from the side of the cargo hold, training an ICER on him. He didn’t have the faintest idea how Coulson had gotten on the plane, but considering he had come back from the _dead_ , there wasn’t much Ward would put past him.

_Of course! That’s why Hill was stalling. The man is insane, must have climbed up through the wheel well before we took off._

“Easy, Coulson,” Ward said, keeping his hands above his head. He wasn’t eager to be on the receiving end of one of those dendrotoxin blasts. “This doesn’t have to get messy.”

“Skye, take his gun.”

Ward heard her scramble up behind him and felt her fingers tug out the handgun tucked against the small of his back. But instead of arming herself, she slid it across the floor of the cargo hold into the lab, far out of reach, before running over to Coulson and throwing her arms around his shoulders.

“Are you okay?” he asked Skye, keeping his ICER steadily pointed at Ward. “Did he hurt you?”

“No, I’m okay. But the encrypted hard drive, I unlocked it for them.”

“Forget that. We need to move. We’ve got to get to the cockpit and change course.”

“No!” Skye grabbed Coulson’s shoulder before he could start ascending the staircase. “We can’t. Deathlok’s up there.”

Coulson’s eyes went wide. “Deathlok’s here? On the plane?”

“He’ll be down soon, to check on Skye,” said Ward, glancing at the catwalk above them. “He won’t let you leave with her, Coulson.”

Coulson gave Ward a bewildered look.

“First off, you’re not on our side, so don’t try to give us tips. And second, this is still my plane.” He reached over to the panel beside the radio and tapped a few buttons on the screen. “I don’t need anyone’s permission.”

The ramp of the cargo bay began to descend. Hands still raised, Ward glanced between them, wondering what in the world Coulson’s next step would be, now that he’d gotten this far. Clearly, the man just made things up as he went along, instead of mapping out the whole strategy from the beginning, like a specialist was expected to do.

Skye rushed back into the lab for her backpack before heading for the parachutes mounted against the wall.

“I’ve never used a parachute before!”

“Forget that,” Coulson headed her off, ICER still trained on Ward. “Get in the car!”

The plane creaked and rocked as the cargo ramp reached its open position. Wind buffeted them, blowing Skye’s hair all around her face as she and Coulson ran toward the red corvette and leapt in through the open top, not even bothering with the doors. Just as they got inside the car, the door of the floor above burst open, and Deathlok emerged onto the catwalk.

In that moment – that split-second when Mike began to raise his weapon-filled arm – Ward made up his mind. He wasn’t willing to die for John Garrett. Not anymore, not without having a choice in the matter. But for Skye…

“Get down!” he shouted, charging at the car and the confused faces of Skye and Coulson. “Get down, now!”

Limbs still moving a bit sluggishly, he slid across Lola’s hood and climbed over the windshield on the passenger side with Skye. Bullets plinked off the glass, and he shielded her body with his.

“Whose side are you on?!” Skye demanded, but she didn’t attempt to push him off.

Ward glanced over his shoulder in time to watch Mike leap down from the catwalk, landing on the cargo bay floor with a creak of mechanized limbs. Their eyes met, unmistakable, and for a second tension hung in the air between them, a threatening promise.

Garrett _will_ find out about this, Mike seemed to be thinking.

Meanwhile, Coulson was frantically pushing buttons and flipping dials on the dash, the ICER abandoned, probably dropped down by the gas pedal, unless he was sitting on it.

“Buckle up!” he yelled as Mike leveled his arm at them again, a small missile popping out of the top of his mechanical implant. He fired, but Lola jerked into reverse and zoomed down the back of the cargo ramp into free fall. Ward gripped the windshield as the missile sailed harmlessly over their heads.

But Skye had _not_ buckled up. She screamed in terror, sliding past Ward’s clutching hands and into the air, ripped free of the car by the swirling winds.

“Skye!”

He stretched out as far as he could reach and grabbed her hand in both of his, bracing his legs under the dashboard to keep himself from flying free as well. Still screaming, she managed to grip his sleeve with her other hand, allowing him to strengthen his hold on her hand. Straining, he pulled her back in between himself and Coulson.

“I told you to buckle up!”

“Little late for that!” Ward bellowed back, forcing the strap of the passenger-side seatbelt across both of them. She hadn’t let go of his sleeve.

“Hold on!” shouted Coulson, still hitting switches, desperately trying to start the car’s flying capabilities. “Mike must’ve hit the boosters!”

Lola jerked and rolled over in the air, each of the four wheel-engines acting independently of one another, spinning wildly out of control. Skye screamed again as they plummeted toward earth, veering into a nose-dive.

“Lola isn’t meant for three people! Can’t take the weight!”

“ _Now_ you tell us?” gasped Skye.

Once more Lola spun around, and Coulson desperately thumbed the switch for the boosters yet again. With an almighty jerk, all four of the car’s thrusters activated, and they came to a near-screeching halt in midair, leveling out just above a skyscraper’s balcony. Coulson guided Lola along the side of the building and down between two parked cars by the curb. They hit the ground with a rocky thumb, and the tires hissed in protest, no doubt punctured either by Mike’s bullets or by the impact.

Amazingly, they were alive. They had dropped out of a plane in a refurbished flying convertible without any semblance of a plan, but they were alive.

Ward looked past Skye’s windblown hair to Coulson.

“Guess it _could_ take the weight.”

He started to cautiously smile, but then Skye turned toward him, her expression fierce even despite her ridiculously disheveled hair. Ward felt something jab hard into his side and heard the piercing sound of a pistol firing, and everything went dark.

***S.H.I.E.L.D.***

Skye panted, both hands still holding Coulson’s ICER pressed up against Ward’s ribcage as his body went slack.

“Oh my god. Oh my god.”

“Skye, are you okay?”

“Y-yeah, I’m fine,” she nodded, voice a little shaky. “He… saved my life. He…” Something didn’t look right about the fabric of his shirt, an unnatural shine. She gave his side a closer look, tugging up the shirt and finding skin sticky with blood beneath. “He got shot protecting us.” _Again_.

The memory flashed back, as fresh as if it were yesterday, their very first mission as a team. Instead of a dark grey Henley, Ward had been wearing a white t-shirt, which had made the small bloodstain on his side all the more prominent. “Skin deep,” he’d said when she asked, “Nothing to worry about,”… but it didn’t change the fact that neither she, Fitz, or Simmons had gotten a scratch on them.

If they were just a mission – _nothing personal_ – why did he keep taking bullets for them?

“That’ll be twenty bucks,” said a voice behind Skye, making her jump. A headphone-wearing valet stood by the side of their car, apparently oblivious to the fact that they had just dropped out of the sky. A few onlookers weren’t so oblivious, staring at them in astonishment.

Coulson looked from Skye to the valet, shrugged, and reached into his back pocket for his wallet.

_To be continued…_


	3. Second Chance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Can Coulson and Skye find it in themselves to trust Ward again?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s notes: Thank you so much for the kudos. It really bolsters my writing energy. Special thanks to skyefknward for commenting. Chapter 3 covers the rest of Season 1, Ep 20: Nothing Personal and gets into Ep 21: Ragtag, but with some twists now that Ward is back with the team. Enjoy!

Skye traipsed around the edge of the motel’s pool, peeled off her boots and socks, rolled up her jeans, and sat beside Fitz and Simmons, sliding her feet into the pool’s comfortingly cool water. The L.A. night was mild, and she leaned back to look up at the sky, the stars obscured by the glow of the city lights. For the first time since she’d discovered Eric Koenig’s body in the storage closet and left Providence Base hand-in-hand with a killer, she could let herself relax a bit.

From what Jemma had briefly told her when they’d reunited with the team, Fitz had taken the news of Ward’s betrayal rather hard, fluctuating between fury and flat-out denial. Now he looked forlorn, lost in thought, staring into the teal depths of the pool. Skye could somewhat understand his pain – just like she’d been starting to see Ward as _more_ than just her S.O., to Fitz-Simmons he had been almost like their tough but protective big brother.

Skye put her hand on Fitz’s shoulder and squeezed gently.

“Thanks for getting my message and coming to rescue me,” she said.

“Of course. We’re a team,” Simmons replied, smiling. “I’m sure it was terrifying, playing along and fooling him into thinking you didn’t know he was a murderer.”

“Yeah, it was kind of hard to play nice when what I really wanted to do was punch his stupid face.”

_Instead I kissed him – damn him for being such a good kisser – and let him live when I had the choice. Was it really because I didn’t want to be a murderer too? Or am I holding out hope that some way, somehow, we might be wrong about him?_

“How’s his, um, gunshot wound?” she asked to distract herself from that train of thought.

“Superficial, all things considered.” Jemma shrugged a shoulder. “Clean exit, no damage to any bones or major organs. If this were an ordinary week in our lives, I would prescribe a couple of days of rest for the stitches to heal properly. But under the current circumstances…”

“And given that it’s _Ward_ ,” Skye grumbled.

“Yes, well… even enemy combatants shouldn’t be denied medical attention,” she said clinically.

Skye had to admire Jemma’s, for want of a better word, _goodness_. Despite all that Ward had done, she’d patched him up just the same as she always would when their team regrouped after a mission. As though nothing had changed, except of course for the fact that they’d kept Ward unconscious the whole time, thanks to another two shots from the I.C.E.R. Skye had to smirk a little at the memory of May double-tapping Ward with the dendrotoxin pistol. The Cavalry had looked a little _too_ satisfied at getting to shoot him.

“I still can’t believe it,” said Fitz, still gazing into the pool. “Not after all we’ve been through together. There must be some reason why Ward did it. Maybe they brainwashed him.”

Skye and Jemma exchanged a somber look.

“Don’t know,” Simmons sighed, as though they’d already hashed out this argument a dozen times in the last day. “Some people are just evil.”

“Well, I’d rather not believe that. What if Garrett put an exploding eye into him, to control him? Maybe that’s why he betrayed us.”

“Fitz, when are you going to stop clinging to the idea that Ward’s the victim and not the perpetrator?”

“When I see something that tells me I shouldn’t with my own two eyes,” he mumbled. “We don’t know all the facts.”

Skye frowned down at the water too. She couldn’t blame Fitz for wanting to see the best in Ward, hoping against hope that he was somehow still a good guy. The problem was, she _had_ seen Ward’s violence with her own eyes, fled as he shot the policemen outside the diner, cowered from him while he professed his deluded feelings for her. Okay, yes, he’d saved her life when they’d dropped out of the plane in Lola… but considering he’d kidnapped her in the first place, she was inclined to think that shouldn’t really count.

She glanced over at the motel building. Ward was locked in one of their rooms, still sleeping off the effects of his triple dose of dendrotoxin, awaiting Coulson’s verdict on what should be done with him. They couldn’t just kill him – that would make them no better than him – but S.H.I.E.L.D.’s fall left them with limited resources to call on. Maybe Commander Hill would just take Ward into her custody. But apparently she had left the decision to Coulson, as the leader of Ward’s team.

Jemma gave Fitz a soft smile and placed her hand on his knee, and suddenly Skye felt out of place, like she was intruding on a private moment. Stepping out of the pool, she picked up her boots and padded back to the tables and the vending machine where Trip was munching on some chips. She set her shoes beside the table and tugged her laptop out of her backpack, which had only managed to stay inside Lola because it had gotten trapped under the passenger dash by Ward’s legs. Yet _another_ thing she was grateful for…

“I thought you didn’t eat junk food,” she said, grinning at Trip.

“I’m on vacation.” He smirked back at her and ate another chip.

“Until…?”

“Until that man tells me it’s time to work,” Trip said, nodding at Coulson exiting one of the motel rooms. He looked a little shell-shocked, which made Skye curious about what _else_ could be wrong. May followed him but stopped outside one of the other room doors, standing sentinel. Skye had to assume that was where they were keeping Ward until the dendrotoxin wore off and they had to figure out what to do with him next.

“Not yet,” Coulson shrugged, approaching the vending machine. “Live a little.”

Trip gave a light laugh. “In that case, I’m gonna go crazy. Maybe have another bag.”

Still chuckling, he crossed behind Skye’s table and headed over to where Fitz-Simmons still sat with their feet in the shallow end of the pool. Coulson fed money into the vending machine, selected a candy bar, and sat down at the table with Skye.

“Ward still out?” she surmised.

Coulson nodded. “For another hour at least.” He unwrapped his candy bar, broke it in half and handed a piece to Skye. “Do you want to join me and May when he does?”

“Sure, if you want me there.”

“I do. Any idea why he decided to jump out of a plane with us and take a hit in the process?”

“Uh, other than his massive, psycho crush on me? Nope,” Skye muttered, typing away. “Maybe he’s still following Garrett’s orders.”

“Guess we’ll find out. If he decides to cooperate.”

“Either way, I left them a little present when I encrypted the drive. A Trojan horse program. Should help. I’m trying to activate it, but I was kinda building on the fly, so it’s not my best work.”

“You did great, Skye,” said Coulson. “We saw the footage from Providence.”

She looked up sharply. _Crap. Crappity-crap. There were cameras in that hallway where we kissed, weren’t there_?

“The… footage?” she asked hesitantly.

“Of you and Ward leaving on the Bus. That was very brave of you, to play him.”

“Right.” She nodded, relieved that holding Ward’s hand was the worse of what the team had seen.

“What did you think I was talking about?”

“Nothing. What were you and May talking about, just now?” she asked, though she suspected it was probably too personal or too classified for him to share, judging by the somber look he’d had. Not that ‘classified’ mattered much anymore, considering S.H.I.E.L.D. was splintered and they were all on the run.

Coulson bit into his candy bar, chewed it thoughtfully, and swallowed, looking as though he was having an internal debate about how much to tell her.

“The T.A.H.I.T.I. project,” he said with a resigned sigh. “Turns out, I was the program supervisor, and I recommended Fury abandon the project because the subjects showed adverse side effects. _Scary_ side effects. I nearly resigned over it. I didn’t want anyone exposed to those procedures or drugs, under any circumstances. Ever.” He met her eyes cautiously. “I’m sorry, Skye.”

“Hey, no regrets here,” she waved away the apology. “I’m totally fine. I’d be dead if you hadn’t gotten that drug to Simmons in time. No matter what weird alien crap was in that vial.”

“There could still be side effects that haven’t shown up yet,” he pointed out. “For either of us.”

“That’s a chance we have to live with. Did that give you any hint to why Garrett needed our data so badly?”

“No,” said Coulson, glancing over at the door where May stood guard, where Ward was held captive. “But I’m really eager to find out.”

***S.H.I.E.L.D.***

Every pore in his body ached. Ward groaned, feeling an odd stiffness in his side, bandages over a wound he didn’t remember receiving. Groggily, he tried his best to assess his surroundings, to tap into instincts drilled into him by years of training.

He was in a dim motel room, duct-taped to a sturdy chair, another piece of tape across his mouth. Judging by the lack of light through the window’s closed blinds, night had fallen, which meant he’d been unconscious for several hours, maybe up to half a day. Aside from the door beside the window, the room held nothing but two twin beds, a bureau with a cheap TV, and a second door that presumably led to a bathroom.

He struggled slightly, testing the limits of the tape around his wrists, forearms, and legs, but whoever had restrained him knew what they were doing. Certainly not Coulson or Skye… May, perhaps? She might have reunited with the group once they’d all left Providence.

“He’s awake.”

He heard a female voice speaking outside the room, the sound carrying through the paper-thin walls. So either they had a camera in the room or someone had been listening very closely.

_Waiting to pass judgment on me…_

The exterior door opened long enough for him to see the motel’s nondescript courtyard, complete with uncomfortable-looking pool furniture. Coulson entered, flanked by May and Skye. None of them were visibly armed, but he knew from experience that May was formidable enough without a sidearm. Other figures stood outside – presumably Fitz-Simmons and Trip – but the door closed before he could be certain.

Without speaking, Coulson reached forward and ripped the duct tape off Ward’s mouth. It tugged at his unshaven skin, and he winced slightly, working his jaw. His cheekbone still hadn’t completely healed from the beating Garrett had given him as part of his cover story only days ago.

They stared at each other for several long, awkward moments, none of them willing to make the first move. Ward was genuinely curious as to what fate they had in store for him, though the fact that they’d given him medical attention indicated they likely weren’t planning on just killing him. At least not yet.

“Nice of somebody to patch me up,” he said to break the strained silence. He made a slight sideways bend in the chair, grimacing at the tug to his injured ribs.

May’s right arm remained at her side, but her hand subtly closed into a fist, as though warning him that she wouldn’t hesitate to punch his lights out if he somehow managed to rip free of all the tape binding him.

“Simmons did it,” shrugged Skye. “Because she’s a good person.”

Her voice implied the rest. _Even though you’re not_.

He met each of their eyes in turn. Coulson looked weary and troubled, more so now than when he’d snuck onto the Bus and held him at gunpoint, but there was still authority in his face, a resolve that wouldn’t waver even against insurmountable odds. May was impassive and as stoic as always, except that her eyes narrowed slightly when he focused on her, as though she would like nothing better than to rip his head off.

And Skye… Ward couldn’t help but cringe a bit after his gaze locked with hers, too pained by the disgust he saw there. She hated him now, which he supposed was justifiable from her perspective, only able to see the end results of his actions without any context as to why he had made those choices. Like she’d said in the diner, he was a backstabbing traitor, a serial killer.

“Will Mike come after us?” Skye blurted out, interrupting the renewed silence. “Does he have a way to track you?”

Ward sensed the implicit questions behind her demand – _Are you being controlled too? Is there a kill-switch in your head? Is Garrett seeing what you see?_ – and his reply would confirm what she already suspected. His actions were his own.

“No,” he answered. “I would have tried to come after you, turned the plane around. But Deathlok won’t. He’ll take the data straight to Garrett. Following orders.”

_Like the orders to stop my heart, force Skye to choose whether I lived or died. Since the day he found me, I’ve done everything he asked… and he would have just killed me to get that hard drive. I meant absolutely nothing to him._

“Well, I guess Garrett doesn’t need us followed anyway,” she said, leaning back against the closed door. “Not when you’re here to report every thrilling detail.”

He blinked. Did they really not know that by choosing to escape with them that he’d disobeyed orders, broken with Garrett?

“Skye, I’m not here on Garrett’s orders. I made my choice. I’m… I’m not reporting to him anymore.”

“You say that, but you know what, Ward? I’m having a really hard time believing you,” Coulson said, raising an eyebrow as though daring Ward to contradict him. “You were a plant on my Bus this whole time.”

“I was,” Ward acknowledged. “Garrett ordered me to become part of your team, to learn why you didn’t stay dead. He’s been chasing this thing for twenty-five years, and he’s willing to cross anyone off to get it. Including me.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” said Coulson.

“Mike,” Skye explained. “Or Deathlok, or whatever. He almost killed Ward on Garrett’s orders, to make me unlock the hard drive.”

“Which… thank you, by the way. For saving my life.”

He offered her a small smile, but she pursed her lips and looked away, as though she hadn’t quite decided whether or not she regretted that choice.

Coulson stepped forward, arms crossed over his chest.

“I’m the kind of person who wants to believe that everyone deserves a second chance,” he said. “That it’s never too late to save someone. You’re really testing that belief, Ward. You killed Eric Koenig in cold blood.”

“And Victoria Hand,” added May. “And others.”

“I did.”

“Why?” demanded Skye. “What hold does Garrett have over you that he could make you do things like this? Kill people?”

“Hang on. I’ve killed plenty of people for S.H.I.E.L.D., too, so don’t stand there and act like the only kill-orders I’ve ever received have been from Garrett.”

“Not innocent people.”

“How do you know that? We’re _spies_. It’s what we do.”

“ _We?_ ” said Coulson. “You really don’t get it. There is no ‘we’ here, Ward. There’s the team, and then there’s you. That’s the choice you made when you sided with Garrett and HYDRA.”

“I know!” Ward’s hands rattled the arms of the chair, but the duct tape held him in place. “It’s what I regret the most. My actions destroyed this team. All I can hope to do is… make it up to you now. I’ll tell you anything you want to know. Anything. I’ll cooperate.”

“Why in hell should we trust a single word you say?” asked May. “You double-crossed us for Garrett.”

“To be honest, I’m still debating why I shouldn’t just turn you over to Hill right now,” said Coulson. “Or better yet, Talbot.”

“Wait, who’s Talbot?” asked Skye.

“Trust me, he’s worse. Or,” he turned back to Ward, “I’m sure your brother, the Massachusetts senator, would be happy to take you into his custody.”

Ward saw red for the briefest moment at the mention of Christian.

“You… Coulson, you don’t know him. He’d… god, he’d probably have me killed, cover it up to preserve the pristine family name. Please… please, Skye.” He stared at her desperately. “Everything I told you about my past, my family, that was true. I swear.”

She bit her lip and glanced away, watching Coulson. Ward clenched his hands on the arms of the chair. If it came down to the choice of being handed over to his brother or dying here in this pathetic motel room, he would pick the latter.

“Coulson, I will do whatever it takes to prove I—”

“Back up a second. What is Garrett chasing, and what does it have to do with why I didn’t stay dead?”

Ward swallowed, trying to regain his calm. His best chance for survival was to prove that he was more valuable with the team than as an exchange prisoner. “Garrett is the original Deathlok. He had an accident in 1990, nearly killed him. S.H.I.E.L.D. left him to die. That’s why he aligned himself with HYDRA in the first place. Cybertek, the Centipede program… it’s all connected.”

“So that’s why you betrayed us,” said Skye, and her lower lip quivered. “All because Garrett had a beef with S.H.I.E.L.D.?”

“Yes… but you have to understand. Garrett… he was like a father to me, Skye. Broke me out of jail fifteen years ago. My parents and brother wanted to keep me locked up for life.”

“I’m not here to listen to your sob story, Ward.”

“I’m just trying to explain—”

“You can’t!” she yelled, hands balling into fists at her side as she stepped up beside Coulson. “Do you understand? You can’t just explain away what you did, Ward. Having parents from hell isn’t an excuse for murdering Nash and Hand and Koenig. You know,” she let out a humorless little laugh, just a short scoffing noise, “Fitz really wants to believe in you. He’s willing to believe you were brainwashed into this.” Her lips pressed together. “I know better.”

“You’re right. I was never brainwashed, not technically. A better word might be… conditioned. I was naïve, and I was grateful. Garrett found me when I was weak and worthless and taught me how to be a man.”

“He taught you to be a _monster_.”

“Maybe. But nobody else stepped in to show me a different path.”

“We tried,” said Coulson. “We were a team… a family.”

“And you betrayed us,” Skye whispered. “So how can we trust you now?”

Ward shrugged as much as the duct tape allowed. “I can’t take back what I did, but I can be useful to you.” He watched Coulson’s face while he spoke, hoping for some sign that his information was new to them, that it was valuable. “Garrett’s getting desperate. He’s using the Centipede serum to stay functional, but he’s falling apart at the seams. He needs to know how the GH-325 formula works. He’s got Raina holed up in his base in Cuba, combing through the supplies he managed to smuggle out of the Guest House without you or Fitz noticing. He thinks that GH-325 will save his life like it did yours.”

“So he doesn’t just want GH-325 for his Centipede soldiers,” Skye realized. “He wants it for himself, so he can become a real, live boy again. And if he happens to create an army of programmed, regenerating super soldiers for HYDRA along the way, triple bonus points.”

“Exactly.” He risked another smile, and this time she didn’t look away.

“Cuba?” asked Coulson. “Garrett’s reurposed the old S.H.I.E.L.D. base in Havana for HYDRA? The barber shop?”

“That’s the one.”

Ward desperately wished he could read what was going on in Coulson’s head, because the gears were clearly spinning over something. He didn’t speak, not knowing what would help his case or weaken it.

At last, Coulson gave a heavy sigh, reached into his suit, and offered May a pocketknife. “Cut him loose.”

“What?” demanded May. “Coulson—”

“And then re-tape his wrists and ankles, but let him get a little more comfortable. That chair can’t be great for the lower back.”

“Coulson.” May took his arm and turned him slightly towards her, waiting until he looked at her before she spoke. “You can’t be serious. He’s HYDRA.”

“He is. But right now, we’re out of options, and he’s the only backup we’ve got.”

“He’s a killer.”

“Aren’t we all?” he asked her, a regretful coolness in his voice. May stared back for a beat, then looked down at the room’s questionable carpet, heaving a small sigh.

“Uh, I’m not. Not that I know of,” Skye mumbled.

Coulson turned back to Ward. “Don’t think for a moment that I or anyone on this team will trust you. We’re going after Garrett, and you’re going to help us. After then, we’ll decide what happens to you. That’s the deal.”

“I’ll take it,” nodded Ward.

“Good.” Coulson’s eyes narrowed. “Because I want my plane back.”

_To be continued…_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Notes: Thanks for reading! It was a challenge to realistically justify why Coulson would opt to let Ward back on the team, but it had to happen so hopefully I did okay. Let me know if you like how I’m tweaking the canon. Also, note that the rating may go up depending on the violence & any other possible content that may ensue.  
> Also, I’m accepting drabble prompts at my tumblr, agentsofsunnydale. Hit me up with any AoS ship drabbles or fic-lite ideas you’d like to see!


	4. Desperate Times

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again for all the kudos and support! Extra special thanks to enchantedlight, Sreya, RunningWild22, thatchapstickchick, and Rhian Jones for commenting, and orlissa for encouraging me on tumblr. The first half of this episode was challenging to tweak, but hopefully it works.

Ward couldn’t sleep, and not just because the duct tape chaffed at the skin of his wrists, or because he’d just finished a dendrotoxin-induced nap, or even because the motel mattress on which he sat was likely infested by bedbugs. A lot of it was due to the death-stares of his former team members as they took turns watching him during the rest of the night – first Trip and then May, which was awkward as hell.

But more than that… he spent the night wondering who he really was, whether he was more than just “John Garrett’s lapdog,” as Commander Hill had put it. He’d been little else for the last fifteen years, the obedient soldier, furthering his S.O.’s hidden agenda at any costs. Perhaps he had outlived his usefulness, and Garrett’s orders for Mike to stop his heart had been a deliberate attempt to eliminate him. Regardless, he pondered the choices he’d made over those many years and wondered whether he’d made those decisions because _he_ was a survivor… or because _Garrett_ was.

Mind too restless to let him actually doze off, he stayed silent, knowing any further attempt at apology or excuse would be futile. He’d played all his cards; now it was up to Coulson to follow through on his intel and decide how useful it was.

At last morning came. Trip reappeared bearing a large suitcase, tea for May, and coffee for everyone else, except Ward. The team bustled freely between their set of rooms, though someone was always with him, keeping guard. He sat up awkwardly on the bed against the far wall, wrists and ankles still bound by the tape.

When Fitz and Simmons entered his room, they briefly made eye-contact with him, and the unmistaken fear and distrust in both of their gazes hit Ward in the gut like a physical blow. He wondered how long it had taken Simmons – the expert on biology – to deduce from Koenig body that he was the murderer.

Along with Skye, they crowded onto the other twin bed in the room, sitting as far away from him as possible. Skye opened up her laptop, seemingly determined to ignore him. Fitz picked up the TV remote and flipped to one of the local news stations.

“H-have you eaten anything?” Simmons asked, a tremble in her voice. She kept her gaze downcast when she spoke to him, as though looking directly at him was too uncomfortable.

Ward glanced up at Trip standing watch in the corner of the room before responding.

“No,” he answered, “not since yesterday, in the diner.”

_“Would you say he’s disgusting? Would you say he’s a disgusting, backstabbing traitor? Or to rot in hell?”_

He swallowed, Skye’s piercing words a repeated echo in his brain.

“Coulson ordered pizza for us all,” said Fitz. “Can you imagine? Pizza for breakfast.” He began to smile, but his expression drooped when he met Ward’s eyes, and he quickly refocused on the TV.

“I presume you were lying about how you obtained your injuries?” said Simmons matter-of-factly. “Since you were with the attacking party at the Fridge?”

“Garrett knew I needed a cover story,” Ward shrugged. “So he provided a convincing one.”

“Wait a second.” Skye paused her typing and turned to face him. “Are you saying you _let_ Garrett beat the living crap out of you, break your ribs and crack your cheekbone… for a cover?”

He wondered from her tone of voice if there was any pity mixed in with her astonishment, but he supposed that even if there was, it was probably just pity that he was pathetic enough to obey Garrett so unquestioningly. Maybe it _was_ pathetic, the way he’d stood there dutifully while Garrett laid into him, not pulling his punches in the least.

“Wouldn’t be the hardest thing I’ve done on his orders.”

“As we can all bear witness,” said Simmons under her breath.

“Yeah, like, say, murdering Koenig in cold blood?” demanded Skye, her tone bitter and her eyes glaring sharply. “Was that hard, or was that just a normal day at the Hydra office?”

Looking down at his bound hands, Ward sighed heavily and swallowed. Killing Koenig had been… ugly, messy. He hadn’t meant for the garrote to slice through the man’s neck, but he was in a rush and Koenig was heavy, thrashing for breath in his last moments. He remembered the streaks of blood left on his hands by the time he stowed the body in the storage closet, blood he hadn’t quite managed to wash off when he had kissed Skye…

“Well?” she prompted, though there was slightly less venom in her voice this time, as though she could see the heaviness of his regret on his face.

“It wasn’t easy, no.”

“But if you could do it again, you still would.”

“If you’re asking me if I could take it back… if I could make a different choice at the Hub, stay with the team instead of go with Garrett to the Fridge, I… I honestly don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” she spluttered. “That monster—”

“That ‘monster’, as you call him, was the only human being I saw for five years,” Ward said scathingly. “He said jump, I asked how fucking high he wanted. Simple as that. You used to get a laugh out of calling me a robot, that I had no feelings. Maybe you were right. Maybe all I am is what Garrett made me to be, until you walked in and woke up a weakness inside me.”

“Hey! Who kidnaped who out of her van in the first place?” Skye retorted, shoving her laptop off her legs and standing up to face him. “And who was secretly working for the guy who had me _shot_ —”

“I didn’t know!” he shouted over her. “Skye, I swear. I didn’t know Garrett would order Quinn to hurt you. It wasn’t part of the plan.”

“Which plan? Hydra’s takeover plan?” asked Skye. “Or Garrett’s Cybertek-slash-Centipede plan? Which one are you following today? I’m having a hard time keeping up.”

“I was never loyal to Hydra, only to Garrett.”

“Same difference.”

“Sounds like I’m not the only one with regrets,” snapped Ward. “You had a chance to kill me before and couldn’t do it. Why not, if you hate me so much?”

Both Fitz-Simmons and Trip looked slightly uncomfortable at witnessing their exchange, as though they wished they could have slipped out as the conversation seemed to be getting more and more personal.

“Maybe it’s because I feel sorry for you,” Skye said, crossing her arms. “Betraying the only people who gave you a chance at being a decent human being.”

“Funny, I remember thinking the same thing about you when you ratted out our operation to your Rising Tide boyfriend. The one who sold out Chan Ho Yin to Centipede and allowed them to stabilize their formula.”

She blanched at his words, but her expression remained steely.

“Miles was a dumbass. He didn’t know what he was doing. _You_ knew exactly what you were doing when you killed those people. And you still did it. You’re still jumping when Garrett says jump.”

“I _was_. Not anymore. Apparently all those years of doing whatever he ordered wasn’t good enough,” Ward spat. “Now that he has a shiny new toy to obey him.”

_Because I meant nothing to him, because caring for anyone is just a weakness._ Like the weakness he’d practically confessed to John when he’d pointed out that shooting Skye wasn’t part of the plan. Ward suddenly wondered how soon after making that confession Garrett had started plotting to kill him off.

“Shh, shh, look. It’s Mike Peterson.” Fitz waved a quieting hand at them both, pointing at the television and turning up the volume.

“Eyewitnesses claim the assailant smashed through several walls before killing Columbia’s most notorious drug lord, Alejandro Castillo, a.k.a. El Dogo,” said the news broadcaster, while the screen displayed a mug shot of the victim, then a blurry image of Deathlok. “Speculation continues as to whether this superhuman assassination was carried out by a man, monster, or machine.”

Fitz turned the volume on the TV back down as the broadcast continued.

“The correct answer is ‘D,’ all of the above,” he mumbled. “But what the hell is Deathlok doing in Bogota?”

“And why would he kill a drug lord with known ties to HYDRA?” asked Simmons.

“My guess?” said Ward. “Spectacle. Why have someone put a bullet in him from half a mile away when you can have a cyborg punch his head off?”

Simmons shivered a little.

“It’s just terrible,” she said.

“It made international news, so it was effective enough,” he shrugged. “Garrett must be using the attack to promote the need for Cybertek’s super-soldiers.”

“If they really are in Columbia, then Garrett and our hijacked plane might not be in American airspace,” Skye said, giving Ward one more bitter glance before refocusing on her computer. “I have to expand our search.”

He was about to point out that he’d already recommended they target Cuba for their investigations when Coulson and May entered with two boxes of pizza. Coulson handed one box to Trip and gave the other to Fitz, who divvied out slices to Simmons and Skye.

“Any luck with that Trojan horse?” Coulson asked Skye.

She sighed grumpily, one cheek full of pizza. “Well, I can’t wake it up and take over their systems because I didn’t have enough time to build it. So—” she held up a USB-drive “—we need to plug this into one of their computers to activate it. And… spoiler alert, we can’t seem to find one.”

May smiled, the first genuine smile Ward could ever remember seeing on her face – including those nights they’d been intimate.

“I think we have,” she said. “Garrett and Cybertek have been working together for years. If it’s on Garrett’s system…”

“It’s on Cybertek’s,” Skye finished.

“We’re in luck there,” nodded Coulson. “We ID’d a number of Cybertek shipments that ping-ponged across the globe. Brazil, Cambodia, Syria, but they all ended up in Havana.” He glanced at Ward. “Seems you’ve been honest for us, for once.”

“I have no reason to lie to you, Coulson,” Ward said simply.

“Unless you’re still playing us, right into Garrett’s hands.”

“I’m not. I stopped being his good little soldier when he ordered Deathlok to kill me.”

“So this is personal? Your own revenge mission?”

“Isn’t it yours?” he countered. “With S.H.I.E.L.D. in pieces, aren’t you just a vigilante?”

“Point taken,” Coulson shrugged. “But I’ll be damned if I’m gonna let Garrett get away with murder. If you’re with me, we can finish what we started. As a team.”

“Cheers to that.” Trip toasted Coulson with one of the slices of pizza.

***S.H.I.E.L.D.***

Skye wished Ward would just look away. Those stupid, puppy-dog eyes of his… like he was still holding out hope that somehow he still had a chance with her. That she could believe his feelings were real, not just part of his mission to steal intel from her and the team.

She didn’t _want_ to believe, because if he was capable of feeling what he thought was love, shouldn’t that have stopped him from committing all those murders? It was a lot less messy to stick with the idea that he was just another one of Garrett’s mindless cronies. That made it easier to not think about all the good times, the missions together… the kisses…

She was glad Fitz was the one who volunteered to offer Ward a slice of the pizza, because then she could go back to pretending to ignore him while she worked on verifying the packages Coulson and May had traced back to Garrett in Cuba. But it only took a couple minutes of digging to confirm their assessment. There was definitely an active Cybertek or Hydra base in Havana, just as he’d told them.

Once they’d polished off the pizza and everyone had cleaned their hands of sauce and grease, Trip brought in the old-fashioned suitcase he’d retrieved that morning.

“My mom’s real sentimental about granddad’s Howling Commando stuff,” he cautioned them, laying the suitcase on the bed and unlocking it.

“We should systematically take a full inventory of every—oh my god, is that a handheld hypno-beam?” Coulson almost squeaked, reaching into the case and withdrawing a small device. To Skye, it looked more like an antique hair dryer than any type of spy gear, but it clearly had significant value to her boss.

Trip smiled proudly. “One of the original betas. See how it has the switch on the bottom?”

“The production models moved it to the side. This is amazing. Almost as cool as…”

“Transistorized blast gun,” the two of them said in unison.

“Ha, ha, okay,” Skye interrupted their geeking out. “The two of you can get a room later, but right now we have a plane to catch. As in _our_ plane.”

She caught Ward’s eyes, noticing how skeptically he was watching Coulson and Trip’s overjoyed enthusiasm for the old-school spy tech.

“Regretting which side you picked today?” she asked him.

“No,” he sighed, “just hoping there’s something in there a little more impressive than a hypno-beam.”

“Hurtful,” Trip grumbled at him.

Skye had to admit, even if the antiques didn’t look that intimidating, they were certainly full of cool-factor.

“Where did they buy this stuff, from the back of a comic book?” She picked up a small tin cylinder with a button on the top.

“Come on, girl, that’s not really a joy buzzer. That’s a—”

Before he could finish, Skye pressed the button. With a loud _pop_ , both the ceiling light and the lamp bulb blew.

“E.M.P.,” Trip finished. “Knocks power out in about a 10 foot radius.”

“Oops,” Skye mouthed.

“Yeah, a lot of vintage S.H.I.E.L.D. spy craft was designed to look innocent in case a spy was caught. Like, um…” Fitz reached into the suitcase and held up what seemed to be a pack of ordinary cigarettes. “Okay, like these smokes.” Taking out one of them, he twisted it, causing a red laser beam to shoot from the end. It arced around the room as he mocked smoking it.

“Thanks, Trip,” Coulson beamed. “This is a huge help. Gives us a fighting chance against these bad guys.”

At that moment, the room’s smoke alarm began to blare. Everyone stared at Fitz, whose errant laser-cigarette had apparently lit the window curtains behind him on fire.

“Oh, Fitz,” Simmons sighed.

Skye glanced over Jemma’s shoulder and saw Ward roll his eyes. For once, they were in agreement.

“Watch out, Hydra,” May muttered as Trip and Coulson rushed to put out the fire. “Here we come.”

_To be continued_ …

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry there was a lot of canon dialogue in this chapter. But at least thanks to Ward’s intel they can go straight to Cuba instead of raiding that random Cybertek office. Please let me know what you think.

**Author's Note:**

> End notes: Feedback is always appreciated. Thanks for reading!


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